I've been looking for my blogging voice. Have any of you seen it out there?
For awhile now, I have been trying to figure out just what I want my blog to be here in the blogosphere. And...I'll just say that...I still don't really know what I want to do with this here blog.
I'd love to start working on doing product reviews (and yes...if you are asking...I'd love to do one for you)...but I don't have a strong enough readership to really "court" companies or seriously talented mommys to let me do that (and seriously...I can't spend any more time trying to boost my readership by blogging then I already do). I'd love to be thoughtful and introspective and write moving pieces that would help the masses...but I just can't do that every day - actually, I'm not sure I could do that on any day. I would love to be funny and witty and have people pass out from laughing at my clever wittiness everyday after reading my posts...but, well...I'm just not funny and witty everyday. I don't even want to try to be controversial enough to get people to read me for the controversy...and my self-esteem is way too fragile for that anyway.
I've thought of just scrapping this whole blogging thing. But for some reason, I need to keep doing it. I can't really explain that...but I guess being out there in the blogosphere is somehow fulfilling for me.
So...if you can help me find my blogging voice...let me know. OK???
20 comments:
I don't think that you have to have a particular niche, per se. I guess I fall in the humor category, but it wasn't like I set out to be that blog. That's just who I am. Random.
I think being yourself and blogging from your voice is great and it's all you need to do!
I've wondered similar things sometimes, but I think I've become happy with what I've got. I generally just blog about two things: what I've been doing, or what I want to know. Right now I want to learn more about cooking dry beans, so my readers are being subjected to two weeks of beans.
Write about what makes you happy. Kindred spirits will find you without too much effort on your part.
If writing product reviews will make you happy, why not write them about things you already use and love?
I like your voice just the way it is. And look - you've got 24 followers! That's got to count for SOMETHING!
(Oh, I've been tossing around the idea of doing a giveaway from my shoppe - maybe a set of the fleece-y jingle-y blocks? If you wanted to host it, we might BOTH benefit! ;-) Just a thought. I've had the shoppe for a while, and I feel like I'm just not doing ENOUGH for God to step in and help, you know? I mean, it's after ALL that we can do...not before. ;-))
you will find your voice, and you wanna know a secret? I got some offers to blog about products... they dont pay nothing! A least the ones I got!
I'm the same way. I don't know where or if I fit in anywhere. I just post what I want. Doing this posting everyday thing has made me realize that I'm posting what I want. and if people find it interesting, that's great. If not.. then that's okay. I'm posting what I want to look back on and be entertained by. Or what I want to remember. I'm now trying to post for me and not for everyone else :)
Mine encompasses many things. Today it became my own theraputic thing; sometimes it's how I find life in funny ways; sometimes a journal; I don't really have an actual subject for blogs. It's whatever I come up with at the time. I guess that's what I like about it. It can be many different things to me.
I have a product you can review. Check it out at my other blog jillscraftycovers.blogspot.com
I think it's the change of weather. It's got everyone in a funk. :)
If you want to do reviews you could trying signing up at www.childsplaypr.com or momcentral.com
Last I knew they don't require you to have massive readership to receive free products to blog about.
I don't think I have really found my blogging "voice" either. I just write whatever randomness comes to me. And sometimes there is not much, like lately. :)
I love your blog. 'Nuff said :)
Keep it coming. I'm impressed you write so often! And now you have 25 followers. I have, like, 2.
I just try to be me, the way I want to BE when I am around actual people. Shyness sucks. I write whatever strikes my fancy.
I tried to sign up for a website that has product reviews and website reviews so I could MAKE money doing this...yeah they denied me and said I was LOW TRAFFIC...not nice, made me wanna cry!!
Obviously, we all love you the way you are! Your voice is honest and real - whatever you are doing. But, I hope you do what makes you happy.
I don't know what to tell ya'. I don't know that I've found my own blogging voice either. Some days, I just don't care. It is what it is--therapy, an escape I don't know.
Good luck finding your voice. I'm enjoying the journey!
Some people start a blog with the intention of making money or making friends or working on their writing or networking or journaling or scrapbooking online. Some people start blogs to keep in touch with their families or be a voice for something they strongly believe in (i.e. the Gospel of Christ, politics, charity, etc.). Some people start blogs because they just want to do what "everyone else" is doing.
Some start blogs for many of the above reasons; others for just a few.
None of these reasons are wrong. Everyone starts for a reason, and some of them end up quitting for a reason. So, ask yourself: Why did I start this blog? It doesn't matter how shallow or silly the reason may seem --you started it for a good reason.
Finding your blogging voice is only difficult when you want to change the style or pace of your blog. Most readerships are fickle --they come and go, wax and wane, and there's really not anything people can do about it. Some bloggers (oh, boy! Do I know a lot of these!!) guilt their readers into leaving comments or do huge give-a-ways to illicit readership or spend HOURS and HOURS commenting on community and personal blogs in order to up their comments/readership. But this is why they blog: They need Constant Social Validation that they are cool. And this could be because they are so shy/uncool/socially awkward in real life, or it could be that they have already conquered their real life social circles, so now they like the challenge of conquering the online circles.
Is this wrong?
No way.
Do I personally find it extremely obnoxious?
Fo' shizzle.
But that's my point. You need to just do whatever you want to do. Post once a week? 10 times a week? Go for it! Wanna talk about politics and your daughter's school adventures? Sure! Need to post a recipe and a how-to and you need some advice on hair color? Hooray!
Your readers love you because they know you and care about you and they have no other reason to be here except for that.
And now my rambling is over, and holy cow! I didn't mean to go on and on...I guess I've had time to think a lot about blogging for the last three years... :)
Oh how I wish I knew how to answer that question. But alas, one look at my blog is proof enough that I don't know the definition of "blogging voice" (for example, in one month I posted a blog about Romanian orphans, almost immediately following another titled 'Bulletproof Spandex').
But I have to agree with your other commenters that I greatly enjoy reading your blog, regardless of which direction you're going that day. Just keep doing what you're doing :)
Hi neighbor! :) Sounds like you're putting way too much pressure on yourself and it's sucking the joy out of your experience of blogging.
Who says you have to have a specific focus? Sounds constraining to me.
Who says you have to be one way or the other? Sounds like setting yourself up for failure.
Just be yourself. And if being yourself means you have an eclectic blog that talks about the joy your find in your son asking you simple questions to holding a giveaway to reviewing a book. So be it!
It's REAL. It's YOU. And nobody can ask or expect you to be anybody other than YOU.
You're never going to appeal to EVERY SINGLE person out there in cyberland. And you know what? It's okay. Your readers visit your site regularly because they enjoy what you have to share.
So RELAX! Have fun! Just be you and continue on as you have been.
You stole my post! I just figured out that I'm being drawn 5 different ways in my blogging - each very different - and I in no way have the time to keep up with 5 different blogs. So do I just include everything on one blog and leave people wondering who on earth I am? Oh, and I'd love to get free products and make money with blogging, but I'm nowhere near that! And I don't have more time to spend to get there! So I feel for you!
I really like what Cheryl had to say ... this blog is for you so just let your voice go and follow where it leads. I have been blogging now for over 2 years and it has been quite the journey. For awhile I posted 5-7 times a week, but now I only post once or twice a week and that works for me ... especially with a newborn in the house.
Don't stress too much over this, your blog is wonderful!
I agree with what others have said. Just be your self and blog about what you are doing, what interests you etc etc. Don't put so much pressure on your self and just have fun! :-)
I say that after taking almost a whole month off from my blog because I just did not feel like blogging so I didn't. I may have lost readers but oh well. I needed the break.
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